


the world and the way

by sharkfights (feartown)



Category: UnREAL (TV)
Genre: F/F, i just wanted a fic where quinn had to rough it do not @ me, unwitting roadtrip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 08:26:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8279420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feartown/pseuds/sharkfights
Summary: “Wait, where’s Area 51?” Quinn asks suddenly.

  “Um, I don’t know, Quinn. Are you concerned Madison and Nikolai are going to get abducted by aliens?”

  “Ugh, I wish they would.”

  “Very X-Files,” Rachel says wryly, and lets her feet slump across the dash as she flicks her sunglasses down over her eyes.

  To Quinn’s credit, though, chasing after aliens does sound a hell of a lot more fun than following a runaway suitor and the stupidest producer who ever lived halfway across America.
   post-s2.





	

**Author's Note:**

> thank you yes i have decided to consider it my personal mission to put quinn and rachel in all my favourite xfiles fic trope situations to make them suffer YOU ARE VERY WELCOME

* * *

 

Rachel is doing her best to remain calm. Her hands sit firmly on the wheel at three-and-nine, knuckles white; the speedo reads 65. Quinn is stony and silent in the passenger seat, having said approximately nothing in the past twenty minutes. The space between them feels fraught and close, and Rachel desperately wants to stop driving and just get out of the car so she can breathe again.

The suitor is missing.

Or, more accurately, he stole a production van and is on the lam with Madison, and Rachel’s never liked him from the beginning but Gary wanted someone “exotic” and Chet called a guy and another guy—the point is, he’s fresh off the boat from Russia and here, on Everlasting—and Quinn hates him too, of course she does, but they’ve barely talked about it because… well, they’ve barely talked in two weeks. And she’s wearing a pair of Rachel’s socks, which is the oddest part of the situation, really.

So the suitor is on the run with their most moronic producer whose only claim to sense was jumping into the van when he took off; she’s not talking to Quinn - _again_ , and all Quinn has done is complain about her shoes so much that Rachel reached into the back seat and threw her duffel across the console. Hence the socks.

When Quinn does speak, it’s roughly in the realm of what Rachel expected to hear.

“How is it that one suitor in four weeks has caused more trouble than all the rest of them put together?”

Her voice, sudden and unprompted, feels too loud in the stiff heat of the car and Rachel has to school her face out of a wince. She likes Quinn’s voice, even when it’s harsh and scratchy in her ears as she insults Graham or barks into a walkie - but right now it has that familiar tone that makes Rachel feel like this is somehow all her fault.

“We should just call the police, Quinn. He could be anywhere.”

“We’re not calling the police.”

It’s a very final statement, like the conversation is over because that’s a satisfactory explanation. But Rachel is having trouble believing that Quinn, who has called the police more times than anyone she’s ever met (she has to be on a wall somewhere, right? With her phone number underneath?), isn’t willing to call this time. At least not without a good reason.

“So does he have a record?” Rachel asks, looking for one. “He a felon? What’s the deal here, what aren’t you telling me?”

Quinn purses her lips and doesn’t reply for a moment. When she does, it’s to her side window. “His visa is… tricky.”

Rachel rolls her eyes because she knows what that means. He doesn’t have one, or the one he had is no longer valid – whatever it is, it’ll get them shut down in an instant.

“So what are we doing here? We’re just going to drive until we find him? How long until Madison’s phone runs out of battery? How long til she misses a sign and sends us in totally the wrong direction? This is insanity,” Rachel says, and punctuates her sentence with a mirthless laugh.

“If you want to keep your job you’ll keep driving until I tell you to stop,” Quinn replies, and turns her attention back to the phone on her lap.

“Great,” is all Rachel says in response to that, and she can feel that Quinn wants to start yelling again so she swiftly changes the subject. “There’s fifty bucks and a pack of cigarettes in the glove box, that’s all I have apart from the petty cash props gave me this morning.”

“Why did props give _you_ the cash?” Quinn asks, only half listening. She’s typing something on her phone, and Rachel hopes to god it’s along the lines of ‘do not get us lost in the middle of the desert, Madison’.

“Because they’re scared of you,” Rachel replies, a little snidely, and clenches her jaw as she looks ahead of them. There’s rain on the horizon, iron grey clouds brewing with angry shoulders towards their car. Fitting, given the blackness of her mood.

Quinn snorts and pops open the glove box, frowning as she pulls a handful of loose singles out of it along with the tattered cigarettes.

“Were you off to the strip club tonight, Goldberg?”

Rachel doesn’t answer.

 

 

The clouds turn into a downpour before the hour is up, and it’s so strong Rachel pulls over and kills the engine, deciding to wait it out. Ever since Chet sent her careening around the hills of Marin County she’s been more than a little wary about driving in dangerous conditions (criminal records help with that too) and feels like she can handle whatever cruel insult Quinn might want to throw at her about it. With how heavy the rain is she doubts she’d be able to hear it anyway.

She taps her foot against the gas pedal, not quite able to sit still while she and Quinn are like this, and watches the rain slowly calm to a few parting spats of water. The sky around them turns from iron to ash, taking on an eerie tinge that can only spell thunder.

Rachel hates storms, which seems ironic considering how often she feels like she’s in one of her own making. However, thunder claps and the hot white of a lightning flash will always put her on edge, and it’s the absolute last thing she needs right now. Her foot taps a little faster.

Lighting her second cigarette Quinn seems like she’s going to leave Rachel’s obvious discomfort alone, but after she takes a drag she hands it across the car and notices Rachel flinch when their fingers touch.

“Rachel. You’re being weird, even for you.”

Rachel puts the cigarette in her mouth, feeling the grease of Quinn’s lipstick before the warm pull of smoke down her throat. Quinn waits for Rachel to hand it back, then snags her wrist so Rachel has to tear her gaze away from the water still running down the windshield and look Quinn in the eye.

Rachel can tell from Quinn’s expression that she has no idea what she’s upset about. It would be easy enough to lie, give some story about her mom calling or last season’s little murder mishap or even pining about Jeremy if she wanted Quinn off her back. She could blame the storm outside their car.

She swallows.

“You kissed a contestant.”

She says it, against her better judgement, because it’s true but also because she hasn’t been able to figure out why it’s fucking her up so much and she needs it out in the open. It’s been roiling in her gut since it happened, this thing; it’s filled her with something that feels like poison, something that makes her feel wild and sick. She recognizes it as a stronger form of whatever emotion surfaced the last time she saw Quinn with John Booth, peeking around the solid mass of his body to grin at her like they were in on the world’s greatest secret.

Rachel’s confession sits in the air for a minute, then Quinn sighs. Dramatically. She cracks the window, tosses the cigarette out and lets a few fat drops of rain in before she digs in her claws.

“Is that _honestly_ what this is about? You’ve been Helen Keller for two weeks because I had to show our suitor how to do his _one_ job? Gimme a break.”

Rachel remembers the way Quinn pulled the girl in by the neck – her girl, Lydia, who had demanded Rachel produce her after Madison accidentally called her stupid – remembers the way Quinn’s fingers pressed into skin; remembers the pearl of her tongue and the wet sound it made when they pulled apart. She remembers because she spent almost an hour rewatching it happen from two different angles in the edit bay at 2AM. She’s never seen Quinn kiss someone like that before.

Rachel’s always prided herself on knowing where she stands with Quinn (mostly because Quinn is always quick to inform her). She never used to feel out of control in their relationship. But once they started running the show together again, once they were Quinn-and-Rachel 2.0 and she found Quinn smashing up the control room… she’d never seen Quinn’s blood before. It bloomed so deep and red in her hand that Rachel felt like it meant something, and when Quinn let her hold it she knew that it did.

After that she lost perspective with Quinn and can’t seem to find it again.

She worries that she doesn’t want to.

Quinn, who is arrogant and abrasive enough to thank someone for calling her a bitch, cares about Rachel. More than Jeremy; more than her mother, who wants to shrink her down to her problems and medicate them until she turns into a heavy-limbed doll; certainly more than her dad, who can only look at her out of the corners of his eyes and feel regret.

Quinn has said as much – she’s limited the people she cares about to two, and since Booth is caput that number has withered, she believes, to one. Rachel should probably be afraid that Quinn thinks she’s the only person worth funnelling love into, but her feelings about it have mostly amounted to something in the neighbourhood of morbid curiosity.

Quinn has always had her back; Quinn has always gone to war for her even when Rachel hasn’t felt like she deserved it – or sometimes even known about it. No one, bar none, has done that for her before.

The silence drags as Quinn waits for her to say… probably anything, in reply.

“You’ve never done that before,” is the only think she can think of, and she’s not entirely sure what she’s referring to.

“And I’ve never done this before either,” Quinn says, lifting a socked foot to emphasize her point, “But there’s a first time for everything.”

Rachel turns the key in the ignition and lets the car rumble to life again. Yes, it seems there is.

 

 

They don’t talk again for a long time, and the thunder still booms above them. Rachel’s hands cramp around the wheel from holding it so tight.

When the car needs gas they stop at the next Exxon they see, Quinn murmuring about snacks and not having enough money. They didn’t have time when their suitor flew the coop to think about anything practical so it’s a miracle they have what they do, which is $250 and a bag of clothes, along with a few stale cigarettes. Rachel just shrugs in reply, not interested in debating their predicament or her own hunger. Madison hasn’t texted them in almost forty minutes and it’s making her antsy.

To her surprise Quinn comes back out of the gas station with a handful of the protein bars she’s always eating instead of actual meals and a thing of donuts - something that Rachel is always eating instead of actual meals. Come to think of it, she’s not certain she and Quinn have eaten actual meals separately _or_ together in the last three years. There’s always been alcohol, never a shortage of alcohol – but their lives revolve around hard nights and golden sunsets, not sit-down food items that have a modicum of nutritional value.

Of course the idea of sitting down opposite Quinn in any setting – but also you know, like a date – fills her with a kind of mortifying terror anyway. Not that she’s thought about it.

She falters taking the donuts from Quinn’s outstretched hand, and Quinn raises her eyebrows in a familiar fashion. Rachel smiles briefly and gets back in the car, not really wanting to elaborate.

Honestly, Quinn’s earlier assertion was correct: she _is_ being weird, even for her.

 

 

Madison texts again after nightfall – _we’ve stopped for the night, what do I do?_

Quinn tells her to be an adult and charge her phone so she can find out where she is and see how long it’ll take for them to catch up.

“When we find her she’s fired,” Quinn says, and Rachel hums softly in agreement.

The road seems to stretch as far in front of her as it does between the both of them.

 

 

Passing the sign for Eureka, Nevada just seems like a cruel joke. _Eureka, Nevada: The Friendliest Town on The Loneliest Road in America_ , it says. The town itself is some kind of perpetual throwback to a quaint mining village; Rachel expects a wagon train to come rolling through at any moment and it makes her feel a little ill. However seedy the Hollywood underbelly is, at least her job involves mansions and craft service, this place looks like somewhere dreams come to get a back alley abortion.

When they reach the Sundown Lodge, their bastion of refuge for the night, Quinn lets out an audible sound of disgust. It’s a comforting noise - at least in all the weirdness they still have something in common, and that’s that they both think this place is close enough to hell that they can feel the brimstone at their fingertips.

Still, Rachel can’t help but needle.

“Petty cash only goes so far, Quinn.”

“You’d hope it would go a little further than this rat-infested shithole,” Quinn replies. Thankfully, it’s with resigned annoyance and she unclicks her seatbelt at the same time, so Rachel knows there won’t be any more arguments about it.

The guy behind the desk seems to be a little over a hundred and fifty years old and has a tenuous grasp on his hearing, but it doesn’t stop him from doing his elderly best to hit on Quinn. Quinn’s not remotely impressed, but Rachel still feels whatever it is that ignited in her belly when Quinn kissed Lydia roar back to life with a vengeance. Also, she’s a little offended that _she_ seems to somehow be totally invisible to this crusty old desert troll. Curtly, she steps forward and bulldozes over the beginning of Quinn’s sentence.

“Two—”

“One room, please.”

Quinn looks sidelong at her but Rachel doesn’t change her tune. “Petty cash, remember?” she says in a voice she hopes the motel owner can’t hear.

He rents them the room (room, singular, as in only one) for the night, making sure Quinn knows she’s welcome to ask him for anything she needs.

Inside, it’s actually not as bad as either of them thought it would be.

Quinn showers, and when she comes back out in a ratty motel towel Rachel has to take care with her face, making sure she looks as neutral as possible about seeing a lot more of Quinn than she has maybe ever. She dumps the contents of her duffel out onto the bed and sweeps her arm over them dramatically. “Take your pick.”

“Thank you, Vanna White.”

Not wanting to see what Quinn thinks of her back-up wardrobe, Rachel takes her own shower and definitely doesn’t imagine Quinn being in here only a few minutes ago.

When she re-emerges, Quinn is at the measly excuse for a counter making tea in Rachel’s yoga pants and a worn v-neck. She looks more domestic than Rachel has ever seen her. The feeling she gets seeing Quinn like this - scrubbed nearly free of makeup, still in Rachel’s socks and dunking a teabag in boiling water - is stronger than she wants it to be. Quinn looks small and human and she hates it but at the same time she wants to curl up in it; she wants to burrow in under Quinn’s softness and live there until she feels soft herself.

“Stop staring at me and put some clothes on, Goldberg,” she barks, and Rachel snaps out of it. She struggles into her underwear under the towel before throwing her tank over her head, then picks up the half bottle of whiskey she found in the trunk of her car. She doesn’t miss the way Quinn’s eyes flick downward when she approaches, but chooses not to comment on it.

“Here’s to runaway suitors,” she says, slopping a few fingers of liquor into each of their teas without an ounce of cheer.

 

 

Rachel knows it’s inevitable because neither of them are going to sleep on the floor, but when they do both finally sit down on the bed together – which, she knows the guy said it was a queen room but this seems to barely qualify as a double – the weight of Quinn next to her threatens to make her fizzle out of her skin.

“Can you stop being so tense? You’re making the bed vibrate,” Quinn says.

“Sorry.”

Rachel tries her best to settle and drink her tea, but she can’t seem to stop watching Quinn text one-handed while she uses the other to balance her cup on her knee. It’s still so weird to see Quinn so relaxed and undone, not cinched into some tight dress or clacking around in heels. It’s funny, she’s heard Quinn telling Jay and Chet – and if the gist of her screaming match with Jeremy was anything to go on, him too – to not pick on her because she barely scrapes five foot, but Quinn without those heels has less height on Rachel than anyone.

That’s the thing with Quinn, she’s hypocritical in the strangest ways, and Rachel never knows what they’re going to be until they happen.

They do, however, usually revolve around making sure the two of them remain each other’s fiercest attack dogs, and for that Rachel isn’t sure how she feels.

It’s always been them. In fact for a while there was a rumour – while Quinn and Chet were broken up; the longest stretch before they inevitably found each other again – that Quinn wasn’t only keeping Rachel under her thumb figuratively but using it for a couple of other things too. It stopped with time the way most things did, though Shia still threw in a few barbs about how often Rachel spent time alone in Quinn’s office whenever she felt Rachel was doing too well at her job. 

“Are you going to tell me what you’re thinking about or do I have to wait another two weeks to find out what neurotic pearl is waiting for me inside your clam-shell of a head?”

“Do you remember when the crew thought we were dating?”

Quinn snorts. “Ha. No, they thought we were _screwing_. Big difference.”

“Okay, but you remember it?”

“Yes, Rachel, I remember it. What’s your point?”

“Sorry. It’s nothing. I was just thinking about all the shit we’ve been through.”

“You really do do that too much,” Quinn says, and goes back to her phone. Rachel thinks about leaving the conversation there, letting it rest.

“I’m sorry, Quinn.”

“Stop apologizing to me,” Quinn says, knowing exactly what – or whom – she’s talking about. “You were all hopped up on Coleman’s dick voodoo, and I know better than most people that that can happen to anyone.”

The mention of Coleman’s name still sends a hearty sluice of anxiety into the depths of her belly, but it’s the thing Quinn has continued not mentioning that she latches onto the most.

“Why have you kept me around all this time?”

She knows it’s a loaded question, but the whiskey still burning down the back of her throat makes her ask it anyway.

“You’re the best producer I’ve ever managed to get a hold of in my entire career. I wasn’t going to spend another ten years of my life training someone else to be my partner.”

It’s a rote answer, said like Quinn has waited for this question for a while and thinks she knows exactly what to say to make sure Rachel never asks it again. But sometimes Rachel is almost more dowsing rod than she is human – she weaves back and forth to find the spot she needs, and when she finds it she digs herself a well until she hits water.

“It can’t just be that, though, right, like, I’m replaceable in a worst case scenario.”

“What do you want me to say, Rachel? Really. I know when you’re looking for something, so what is it that’ll make you satisfied?”

Quinn knows how to turn a situation around on someone in mere moments, and Rachel feels caught out. She stalls and picks at a loose thread in the blanket beneath her hand, then picks at a spot on her knee; runs her fingers through her hair.

Rachel loves Quinn, in the wrong ways and for the wrong things and fiercely and tenderly and angrily, and what she wants more than anything is to know that Quinn loves her the same. Not in the blue light of several smashed televisions; not pressed to reply while reclined on a lawn chair in London. Just here, in the low light of a musty hotel room, in Rachel’s clothes and on this bed.

She’s not sure Quinn would tell her, though, not in a place where she’s already given up so many of her usual customs, so she plays it safe and says nothing.

Quinn puts down her phone and shifts so her body angles towards Rachel. “Okay, here’s one for you, then. Do you remember the night you told me about what happened to you when you were a kid?”

Rachel does. A contestant had made her sweat – physically, until she was dripping, until she felt like she was drowning under the weight of her own skin – and Quinn had sat her down on the couch in her office afterwards, her hands firm on Rachel’s arms. They were clammy; Quinn’s fingers kept losing their grip because her biceps were so slippery. She was crying. The world felt too loud.

Quinn had said: _I need you to pull yourself together I need you to stop crying I need you to tell me what’s going on_ , and Rachel had put her hands on Quinn’s knees and felt Quinn’s hair brush her cheeks—it was longer then, a little lower than her shoulders, and Rachel hadn’t washed her own hair in a week—Quinn had waited and stroked her arms slowly until Rachel was mimicking the speed with her breaths. She’d waited and waited and cared.

She told Quinn everything and watched her face harden into stone.

She had asked Rachel one thing when she’d finished talking: _what do you need me to do?_

Rachel had wanted five minutes, a drink, and for Quinn to never speak a word of her confessions to anyone.

Quinn had barred her mother from set the next day.

“You told me nothing that bad could happen to me again while you were around.” It struggles to get out of her because she doesn’t know if Quinn still believes it.

“Loyalty goes both ways, Rachel,” she says, because she does still believe it. “You deserve someone who doesn’t let you down all the time, even if sometimes you make me question why. So I’m the one who should be sorry about Coleman.”

Rachel wants to kiss Quinn because it seems like the only reasonable thing to do after she’s said something like that, but something in her knows that Quinn would take it the wrong way, or somehow feel it wasn’t genuine.

Instead, she curls in; hunkers down until her head rests on the slope of Quinn’s thigh. She feels Quinn flinch but she doesn’t tell Rachel to move, doesn’t tell her she’s not in the mood to indulge her weird maternal fantasies after today.

After a moment, her fingers come to rest just below Rachel’s ear. It’s enough but it isn’t—she wills a smooth slide of them down over her neck, raked through her hair, dragged across her lips until she’s pliant and begging. But Quinn just leaves her hand where it is, warm and gentle and safe.

“Broken people have to stick together, Goldberg.”

Rachel falls asleep before she can think too much about what that means.

 

 

She wakes hours later, her head sandwiched between an errant pillow and the solid length of Quinn’s thigh. Quinn is asleep, having done her best to get comfortable without disturbing Rachel - which Rachel thinks is perhaps the only time in recent memory that Quinn has worried about inconveniencing someone.

She does her best to move quietly but Quinn stirs with a tight frown, an arm flailing into the air. Rachel catches her wrist and tugs until they’re both struggling under the covers. Rachel isn’t certain Quinn ever actually wakes, she’s already settling onto her side and into rhythmic breaths while Rachel flicks out the lamp. She searches out Quinn’s form in the swallowing dark and since she does seem to be asleep, Rachel figures letting her head rest flush with the back of Quinn’s shoulders won’t bother her.

 

 

Morning makes her realize they forgot to shut the blackout curtains, and that Quinn sleeps similar to the way she wakes – in danger of falling off a precipice. In this case it’s just a bed, but Rachel still makes sure the squeeze she gives Quinn’s arm to rouse her is gentle.

Once they’re both awake they sleepily pack up together in a well-knit, comfortable silence. It’s early; the sun barely skims the top of the hill Eureka, Nevada—god, that’s really where they are, isn’t it—is slung against, but Madison’s reply to their querying text lets them know they need to make some ground as soon as possible. When everything is in the car, Rachel takes the room key back and Quinn smirks.

“He’s like ninety-percent cataracts, Rachel, what do you think is going to happen?” she asks.

Choosing not to answer, Rachel disappears to the reception office.

“I’ll drive,” Quinn says when she comes back, extracting the keys from Rachel’s fingers, “You’ll kill us if you do any more without a break.”

It’s said as brusquely as Quinn says anything, but Rachel still thinks it’s sweet, however deep down the sentiment might come from.

 

 

Soon her head is pounding from a lack of coffee, her mouth as dry as the ground outside, and she begs Quinn to stop. When she does, it’s the next hillbilly town past Eureka and its signs of life are even more dismal. Thankfully, it only takes Rachel a few minutes to return with two coffee cups stacked on top of each other, balanced carefully in one hand while she opens the door with the other.

Quinn reaches across the car to retrieve the top cup before it falls, and Rachel suddenly realizes she never even asked Quinn if coffee was something she wanted.

 

 

They drive and the land levels out in front of them, dustbowls on either side of the road.

The fields are scruffy until they aren’t even fields anymore, just long stretches of earth covered in jagged, meandering cracks and the occasional grimy homestead.

“Wait, where’s Area 51?” Quinn asks suddenly.

“Um, I don’t know, Quinn. Are you concerned Madison and Nikolai are going to get abducted by aliens?”

“Ugh, I wish they would.”

“Very X-Files,” Rachel says wryly, and lets her feet slump across the dash as she flicks her sunglasses down over her eyes.

To Quinn’s credit, though, chasing after aliens does sound a hell of a lot more fun than following a runaway suitor and the stupidest producer who ever lived halfway across America.

 

 

In a couple of hours, it conspires that Madison thinks the suitor is heading for the Grand Canyon.

“Just what in the fresh hell does this vodka-chugging jagweed think he’s going to do at the Grand Canyon?” Quinn fumes.

“Mmm,” Rachel says, thinking of at least a few things he could do, “Suddenly this feels a lot more Thelma and Louise. Who do you think Madison is?”

But Quinn is no longer in the mood, and pulls the car ungracefully into the next rest stop so she can get on her phone. She has to get out of the car to get reception, and Rachel waits inside for a moment, watching the grey dust settle and listening to Quinn yell at whoever was unlucky enough to pick up the phone.

She hears the word crew, and then she definitely hears Quinn give the exact location of her purse, so she assumes they’re going to be met at the closest airport. She retrieves the cigarette packet from the glove box, and shoves one between her teeth as she hauls herself up out of the car.

Quinn ends her call with an irritated huff and throws her phone onto the driver’s seat.

“What’s the deal?”

“The crew and the two girls our idiot suitor was supposed to have day-long dates with are flying out and meeting us at the Valle Airport in two hours. Chet’s already called one of his state trooper buddies and they’ve got their eyes peeled for any sign of the van.”

“Isn’t the Valle Airport like a historic museum site or something? I don’t know that you can actually fly a plane in there, Quinn.”

“Well, you can now.”

Quinn disappears inside the car for a moment before coming back out with a cigarette of her own.

“So the day-long date girls… that’s Lydia on her way out here then,” Rachel says, failing to convince even herself that she isn’t bothered by that realization.

Quinn rolls her eyes. “Rachel, are you being a bitch about this because I kissed her or because you think I liked it?”

She wasn’t expecting to be called out so directly given Quinn’s skill at not addressing the subject so far, and doesn’t quite know how to answer her million-dollar question.

“That’s what I thought,” Quinn says, and for a minute all Rachel can do is watch her take a smug drag of her cigarette and lean a hip against the side of the car.

“So you were flirting with her.”

Quinn snorts. “You flirt with every girl you’ve ever produced, _Rachel_ , it might as well be in the job description at this point. And do I even need to remind you about Adam?”

“That was different,” Rachel snaps, still sore about that particular wound, and Quinn raises her eyebrows.

“Why, because you thought you loved him? Please.”

Rachel knows Quinn is right; she has no leg to stand on when it comes to debating who is more at fault for putting their mouth where they aren’t supposed to, but Quinn’s still—no. The problem isn’t who she’s kissing, it’s who she’s not.

Rachel gets back in the car with a frown, throwing her cigarette butt into the dirt. Quinn joins her a minute later, sending one last plume of smoke out the open door before starting the car.

It seems safest to go back to not talking after that.

 

 

By the time they get to the airport, one of Chet’s troopers has sequestered the van with Nikolai and Madison inside and the crew has already disembarked the plane and started setting up.

Quinn leaves the car without a word and starts shouting orders (including one to pay no attention to what she’s wearing), so Rachel heads for the van, seeing Madison sitting on the back bumper.

“Hey Madison, you doing okay?”

“Well, being a hostage wasn’t exactly my idea of a great time but I’m fine. Is Quinn mad at me?”

“Why would Quinn be mad at you?” Rachel asks, knowing full well Madison could breathe too loudly and piss Quinn off.

“Because I couldn’t get Nikolai to turn the van around and come back – I tried, really, but he just doesn’t speak Engli—”

“Madison, it’s okay. She’s not mad at you, you did great. For real.”

“Rachel!”

Quinn’s voice carries sharply across the tarmac and Rachel winks quickly at Madison before striding over to find out what Quinn wants, not a hundred percent comfortable with looking her in the eye.

“Okay, weirdo, it turns out our Russian fugitive can pilot an airplane, so we’re sending him up with one of our girls in one of these hunks of antique junk – we just have to figure out which one.”

“Polly’s into hang-gliding and adventure sports; something to bond over maybe?”

Quinn snorts. “Yeah, she’s going to adventure her way right off a cliff if she’s not careful. After that abysmal showing during the group date last week? I’m honestly surprised Nikolai didn’t cut her. Why not Lydia?”

Rachel knows exactly why not Lydia. She thrusts out her chin, ready to lie. “Lydia’s afraid of heights.”

“Great,” Quinn says, not taking the bait. “He’ll comfort her, they’ll have a moment, it’ll go over great. Ratings galore.”

“No,” Rachel says. “It’s not the sexy afraid of heights, it’s the throwing-up, hysterical-crying kind. Polly’s a better bet.”

“Fine, if you want a good bet, how about it?”

Rachel knows better than to bet against Quinn King, but something about her self-assured swagger against all this Lydia shit is making Rachel lose her mind, so she nods.

“Fine. 2K sound fair?”

“Oh, no no no. I don’t want your money.”

Rachel’s stomach drops. “What do you want?”

Quinn steps forward, getting as far into Rachel’s personal space as she can; shoring herself up on the edge of that discomfort and making Rachel focus on the individual features of her face. She smiles and it’s wicked, a smile Rachel knows means she’s planning something and isn’t going to tell Rachel what it is.

“You’ll see,” Quinn says. “Lydia’s about to get catapulted to frontrunner faster than you can say dick—”

“Um, whoa, okay, no way. Lydia’s my girl, you can’t just take her.”

“Rachel, they’re both your girls.”

Rachel doesn’t know how to answer that, but she also doesn’t have to. Quinn’s smirk is enough.

“Take Lydia, then. I don’t care. Either way you’re gonna lose.”

 

 

“Lydia? Hey what’s up, how’s it going?”

Lydia – pale, golden, bright-eyed Lydia with her magazine-spread body and perfectly curled hair – looks up from her book to see Rachel and a steadycam op approaching; producer-mode turned on high. Something about the way Lydia smiles at Rachel makes her stomach turn, even though she’s sure it’s completely innocent.

“Hey Rachel, this is all a little exciting isn’t it?”

“Ye _ah_ ,” Rachel says, trying to sound truthful. “That’s Everlasting. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard that we can only get one of you in the plane on this date, so it’s kinda between you and Polly right now.”

“Oh,” Lydia says. “Well, I mean, you know I’m not super great with heights, it might be better if I sit this one out.”

“Aw, come on, Lydia. You don’t wanna let a little fear get in the way of a great date with Nikolai, do you? Especially since, well…”

As usual, the patented trail-off hooks Lydia right in and she straightens up from her book properly, letting it rest in her lap. “Since what?”

“I mean, you know the girls have been talking, right? That thing with Quinn…”

Lydia shoots a look over at where Quinn is in deep conversation with Polly, and Rachel thanks whatever higher power possesses Quinn to put a reassuring hand on Polly’s arm right at that moment.

Clearing her throat, Lydia shifts uncomfortably in her chair and Rachel knows she has her. “That was really… I mean—it didn’t _mean_ anything, people aren’t—are they?” She bites her lip. “I’m here for Nikolai, Rachel, one-hundred percent. I have no interest in _Quinn_.”

Rachel can’t figure out why she wants to get defensive about that (who wouldn’t be into Quinn, Lydia?), but swallows down the urge to instead say, “Okay, well, I’m just saying… I think if you wanna prove that to _America_ you’re not gonna be able to sit anything out today, you know?”

It always gives Rachel a thrill to see one of her girls find their indignation and decide to head for the jugular of this stupid game, but knowing this time that she’s going directly up against Quinn stirs something much more powerful in her. She seeks Quinn out in the crowd of milling crew members and when she catches her eye, Quinn gives her a condescending wave.

However, it’s her girl who gets in with Nikolai first. Rachel sees Lydia pull him to the side, starting to work whatever white magic she has going on, and Rachel sits down in her recently vacated chair.

“Think your job’s done, Goldie?” Quinn’s voice comes from behind her. “Patting yourself on the back and keeping a lookout for the next enthusiastic dick to take your winning high out on?”

“Leave it alone, Quinn, Lydia’s right on track to be your next wifey and she’s got this date in the bag the way you wanted in the first place. Owe me a bottle of bourbon and call it a day.”

“Um, while your self-assurance is admirable it’s also a little premature,” Quinn says, angling Rachel’s head around with two fingers so she can see Lydia embroiled in a heated debate with Polly – one that Lydia appears to be losing.

“Shit, Quinn, what the hell did you tell Polly?”

“Nothing,” Quinn says. “She just asked whether something was going on between me and Lydia and simply said I didn’t know.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Rachel says, furious, and jogs as fast as her exhausted body will allow her over to the girls.

Unfortunately, it’s all over. Nikolai puts his arm around Polly just as she gets there and announces she’ll be the one going up in the plane with him. The end.

Never take a bet against Quinn King.

 

 

Later, Quinn finds Rachel slouching in the driver’s seat of the car, feet out the door and the radio up a little too loud. Someone must have brought Quinn a change of clothes, because she’s back in one of her usual black dresses and a pair of heels that could easily kill a man; completely devoid of her previous softness.

“Hey Goldberg, start the car. We need to head up to the Canyon; get some sunset shots of these hetero douchebags kissing; some sad-faced Lydia looking to throw herself into the abyss, the usual garbage. Hey, maybe you could give her some tips on the facial expressions.”

She’s a little too pleased with herself, and Rachel knows that mood. Rachel knows she herself gets turned on by producing, but she also knows where she gets it from. Quinn was the one who all those years ago taught Rachel the best way to produce is to treat it like a form of seduction; Quinn was the one who said she had to want it as much as those girls did, Rachel had simply listened.

Rachel wonders, now that Quinn is unattached, who she’s going to take _her_ producer high out on. For a brief second, she imagines Quinn dragging her into an empty bathroom stall and making her get on her knees, but tamps it down for how impossible it would be. At least, she tamps that _thought_ down; her physical reaction to the idea is a little harder to suppress.

And not that she truly believes it’ll happen either, but Rachel makes a note to keep Quinn as far away from Lydia as possible while they finish shooting.

 

 

Admittedly, they had the right idea coming up here. As the sun creeps down below the horizon, the canyon turns to deep blood oranges and golden browns that make even Rachel appreciate the beauty of the place.

She sits on a rock and watches the evening move; listens to a bee humming nearby and just lets the quietude soothe her. Once Quinn has finished directing she joins her, rotating her ankles in her heels.

“A couple of days without the damn things and they’re killing me,” she says.

Rachel tosses a quick look at Quinn’s absurd heels, then drags her eyes up her legs, her torso… and then back across the view in front of them when she realizes she’s staring.

“So what do I owe you?” Rachel asks eventually. “Some kind of public humiliation parade? Do I have to pay for a blimp that says ‘Quinn King Is The Best’ and fly it over Marin County?”

Quinn just chuckles. “Oh no, something much worse.”

Rachel assumes, wrongly, that there couldn’t be anything worse than what she’s been thinking up as possible punishments for the past two hours.

“I want a date.”

For a minute, Rachel has no earthly idea what that means. “With who?”

“You.”

Heat floods into every part of Rachel’s body. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You heard me. You and me, on a date; whenever we manage to make it out of this waking fucking nightmare of a week.”

“You and me on a date. Are you hearing yourself correctly right now, Quinn? Did you fall in those heels and get a concussion? Because you sound _crazy_.”

“Is it any less crazy than you getting your panties in a twist about me kissing a contestant? I’m not an idiot, Rachel, I know what’s been going on in your weird little head for the past few days, and I’m not letting you fuck up our relationship with whatever fantasy it is you’re concocting. You either stop it now or take me on a real, honest-to-god date to see how much you’d hate it, and _then_ you get any ideas about me out of your vag for good.”

Rachel is furious that she’s blushing, and furious that Quinn thinks she knows what’s going on so well. “How are you so sure that I’d hate it? And what about you, why are you so sure _you’ll_ hate it?”

“I never said I’d hate it,” Quinn replies, then stands. “Come on, _roomie_ , we’re in the hotel for the night and everyone’s doubling up.”

She doesn’t let Rachel reply, just walks off, but Rachel isn’t sure she’d be able to anyway.

 

 

She stays on her rock well into the twilight, and the more she thinks about what Quinn said the more infuriated she becomes. How dare Quinn assume so much about her feelings?

When she finally stomps into the hotel reception and gets directed to her room, Quinn is on the phone on their small terrace and shows no signs of hanging up. Idly, she notes that there are two beds, and then she gets in the shower.

When she comes back out, Quinn is gone.

 

 

She finds her out at the car, and Rachel has a whole speech planned about how wrong Quinn is but when she sees her, shadowed and surrounded by smoke under the yellow fluorescence of the hotel’s floodlights, everything dies on her tongue.

Well, almost everything.

Quinn knows Rachel is going to kiss her and Rachel is sure she’s going to stop it. All the way up to Rachel crowding her against the front bumper she’s sure Quinn is going to dodge, or pull back and say _what the hell do you think you’re doing, Goldberg?_

But she doesn’t, and it’s somehow the most expected and unexpected thing Quinn has ever done.

Their mouths slide together like sides going to war, Quinn’s lips like slickened honey under hers, moving in earnest as Rachel kisses her.

She likes the way Quinn opens her legs after a moment so Rachel can press between them, inner thighs roughing against her hips as Rachel tugs up the skirt of her dress. She likes the warm, low sounds Quinn makes into her mouth and the tug of her hand in Rachel’s hair; the hot rush of adrenaline she feels when Quinn grazes her bottom lip with her teeth.

Quinn _lets_ herself be kissed, and when Rachel remembers Lydia she kisses harder - pushes Quinn further onto the hood of the car and is delighted when Quinn responds, her breath coming out in a damp, husky rush as Rachel thrusts her tongue dirtily past her teeth.

She finds out just how much underwear Quinn isn’t wearing when she pulls the hand Rachel has on her thigh further north and Rachel lets out an involuntary moan. She suddenly realizes that Quinn – sharp, proper, buttoned-up Quinn - would let Rachel fuck her right now, here in this hotel carpark.

The knowledge that Quinn is up for getting fingered on top of a car that hasn’t been through a carwash in… well, only the good Lord knows at this point - is more of a turn-on than Rachel would ever have imagined, but it also makes her disentangle from Quinn and swing round to rest next to her against the car.

After they both catch their breath, Rachel steals a look at Quinn. Dishevelled, her lips swollen, Quinn has never been more attractive to her. Rachel considers it a feat of Herculean strength on her part that she doesn’t go right back to thrusting her hips between her legs like a horny teen, and instead steels herself for something she knows she has to say.

Quinn wipes the edges of her mouth and it galvanizes Rachel into talking, anything to stop that image from occupying her mind. Briefly, she wonders if this is going to become a regular problem and wishes she hadn’t kissed Quinn at all. It’s hard to go back to a professional relationship when you know what the inside of your boss’s mouth tastes like.

“It’s not fair that you think you know me better than I do,” Rachel says, scuffing the ground with her foot.

“Clearly I don’t if that showing is anything to go by,” Quinn replies, but it still has an air of teasing that triggers Rachel’s argumentative button.

“Is this a joke to you? Do you think I just need to be produced out of my feelings or something?”

Quinn sighs. “We work together, Rachel. That’s hard enough as it is. Why would you want to complicate it when you know how well it’s panned out for both of us in the past? I just want you to consider the long-term of things.”

It’s then that Rachel realizes Quinn is scared. It’s all locked up underneath her flippant veneer, but Rachel knows Quinn well enough that she can feel it now. Quinn is scared because she’s lost so many relationships to this job, so many men have gone up in flames and left to turn to ash and she doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Rachel.

Which means Quinn has thought about this just as much as Rachel has, and that’s something that scares _Rachel_.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel says, hoping it’s enough.

“It’s fine, Rachel. We’re tired, and—”

“Quinn? Could you just… please don’t diagnose me right now. I have an actual mother for that.”

She gets up and heads back inside, Quinn’s gaze burning into her back. She joins Rachel ten minutes later, brushing her teeth and slipping into the other bed without a word.

It’s the worst sleep Rachel has had in years.

 

 

In theory, Rachel understood that she was going to have to drive her car back to California once they caught up with the suitor. But it takes the crew loading up onto the plane the next morning for her to fully appreciate that fact in its entirety.

She considers roping Madison into trading off with her, but that consideration dies when she thinks about having to entertain her for two days straight.

To her surprise, Quinn throws a bag into the back seat and drops into the passenger side of the car, flipping the shade down to check her makeup in the mirror before looking at Rachel next to her.

“What? You think you were going to be allowed to drive all the way home alone? You’re still on probation, Goldberg.”

“And… you were the one who volunteered to come with me.”

“No, I’m the one who has access to the money if you get yourself into trouble,” Quinn says, flashing a credit card in Rachel’s face. “This was not a volunteer position.”

 

 

The route they take home passes through Vegas, and Rachel remembers acutely their last visit to the place. This one is much more subdued and sober, their hotel an irritating neon circus in comparison to the drab surroundings they’ve grown accustomed to.

Rachel makes no comment when Quinn asks for one room with two beds.

However, after she showers and tries her best to lie down and settle, Rachel finds that despite her exhaustion sleep just won’t come. She listens to Quinn making herself comfortable and feels the bright light of her phone against her closed eyelids, but that’s not what’s preventing her from sleeping.

Quinn has had her on edge all day, and all Rachel wants to do is have a drink – or several – and not think about what her mouth feels like for even half an hour.

She fidgets for another forty minutes then looks over to the other bed.

“Quinn?” she asks tentatively. “Are you still awake?”

There’s no answer for a moment, then she hears Quinn shift. “Yes.”

“I’m gonna go down to the bar for a bit, okay?”

Another pause. Quinn sits up.

“You want company?”

 

 

After Quinn gets dressed and puts on makeup faster than Rachel believes can be humanly possible, they slink down to the bar together. Rachel, seeing several heads turned towards them, has the distinct urge to capture Quinn’s arm in hers, or hold her hand – something, anything to impress on the room that Quinn doesn’t belong to them.

Unfortunately Quinn doesn’t belong to her, either, so she keeps her hands shoved into her pockets and just follows as close as she can.

Quinn orders them a row of tequila shots, already clued in to Rachel’s mood, and they stare at them for a moment before Rachel looks over at Quinn. She looks almost as tired as Rachel feels, that heavy bone-tired, and Rachel leans over to gently bump Quinn’s shoulder with hers.

“You can just say ‘there’s no place like home’ if you wanna go back to Kansas,” she says.

The smile she gets from Quinn gives her hope somewhere deep in her heart, and then she feels something else much lower when Quinn winks and holds up a shot.

“If I’m Dorothy, who are you?”

Rachel picks up a shot of her own and clinks it against Quinn’s. “Toto, of course.”

 

 

It turns out that after three tequila shots Quinn is a very adept – if loud – blackjack player.

Rachel knows too well how much trouble betting gets her into, so hangs back and watches for the most part, preferring to see Quinn play with fire and not get burned herself.

Quinn almost screams with excitement when she wins the table, and to Rachel’s surprise she grabs her into a half-formed hug before collecting her winnings.

With alcohol everything feels loose – Quinn doesn’t seem cordoned off the way she has for the past two days; her smile is wide and easy and focused mostly in Rachel’s direction. They feel like _them_ again.

 

 

Back at the bar she closes in on Quinn’s space, wanting to feel the camber of her hip and the slope of her waist beneath her hands. She thinks she can stop there, that it’ll be fine and she can behave if she can just be near Quinn, soaking in the lack of boundaries she’s finding in her way. She doesn’t need to kiss Quinn again, she really doesn’t.

Then on the way to the bathroom, Quinn stumbles into Rachel’s side and cackles warmly in her ear as she holds her arm for balance, and Rachel’s resolve cracks.

She forgets exactly how they start kissing, only that Quinn is smiling into her face and then Rachel is pushing her up against the wall so their bodies rough solidly together. Quinn’s arms hook around Rachel’s neck like Rachel is an anchor in some wide trembling sea, Rachel’s hands hot against her hips.

Rachel wants to stop herself because there’s no way this can end well, and there’s no going back. But Quinn’s tongue is painting the inside of her mouth and there are sounds at the back of her throat that Rachel wants desperately to coax out, so she can’t find it in herself to pull away.

Quinn’s hands slide from Rachel’s neck to the hem of her shirt, rucking it up so she can run her fingers over Rachel’s ribs and up her back.  

Quinn pulls back just slightly so she can speak against Rachel’s lips. “Bathroom. Now.”

They lock the door and Rachel puts Quinn’s back up against the counter none too gently, lips fused to her neck. Her hands scrabble at the top of Quinn’s zipper, but Quinn has shoved a knee between her legs and pulled Rachel onto her thigh and it feels so good that Rachel can’t seem to remember how her fingers work.

“What are you _doing_?” Quinn asks, impatient.

Rachel huffs a lock of hair out of her face which ruffles Quinn’s bangs as well, and drops her hands from Quinn’s zipper. Grinding her teeth she can hear herself say, “my _best_ ,” and then Quinn is laughing harder and more genuinely than she’s ever heard.

It’s the kind of sound that makes Rachel know she loves her, it makes her take Quinn’s face in her hands and kiss her steadily until Quinn is breathless and pushing on her shoulders so Rachel will drop to her knees.

She pushes Quinn’s dress up her legs and her fingers are shaking so much she scrabbles to get them hooked around Quinn’s underwear, finally pulling them off and discarding them behind her. She smears her mouth along the inside of Quinn’s thigh, waiting for Quinn to groan in frustration. She hears her name – just a gritted-out, rasping of _Rachel_ – and knows she’s teased long enough.

Quinn is slick and hot under her tongue and Rachel hears her hand slam against the wall next to them, her other hand coming to thread through Rachel’s hair and hold fast to her scalp so she can’t escape.

Not that she wants to. Rachel could live in this moment forever; listening to Quinn trying to swallow her moans, her hips rolling against Rachel’s face more and more erratically.

She knows Quinn is close because her sounds start to reach a higher pitch, _Rachel, yes,_ starting to spill out in a steady stream. She wants to see Quinn come, but she also knows that’s why she’s down here – Quinn doesn’t want her to see that tonight, she’s not going to let Rachel in quite that far. Rachel tries not to let that knowledge hurt her, and flicks her tongue until Quinn is bucking and keening against her.

When she calms back down, Rachel gets up off her knees and straightens out her tousled hair. Quinn flexes her hand and Rachel gives her a questioning look.

“Just slammed it a little too hard; don’t worry about it.”

She leans forward to pop the button on Rachel’s jeans, but Rachel stops her and shakes her head. Even in her tequila haze Rachel knows Quinn just feels obligated, and she can’t handle that kind of disappointment tonight.

 

 

The alarm Quinn set goes off at 5:30AM, but the sound is drowned out by how loudly Quinn groans.

“Why did we decide to get up inside the actual ass-crack of dawn?” she asks from beneath the comforter. They lie there for a few more minutes, but Quinn eventually throws the covers back, hauling herself up and opening the curtains to make sure Rachel isn’t trying to go back to sleep.

The artificial carnival lights of Vegas are still brighter than the sky for now, but the sun is approaching and Rachel sucks it up. She doesn’t want to be the target of Quinn’s wrath for by far her biggest pet peeve: lateness. She also doesn’t want to be the target of questions about last night’s activities, bad _or_ good, so she gets up and momentarily barricades herself in the bathroom.

She fucked Quinn.

Rachel looks at herself in the mirror – the greyish creases under her eyes, sunken from a hangover; her hair honestly an insult to the skill birds have in creating a nest; the dark, purpling mark right at the base of her neck that sends a fresh flood of arousal right through the core of her.

She fucked Quinn, and she doesn’t know what to do about it.

Quinn is on the other side of the door and Rachel has no idea what she’s thinking either, and the day is stretching so far out in front of them that Rachel wants to throw up.

Instead, she splashes water on her face; puts her hair up in a bun at the back of her head. She does what she always does: tries her best to deal.

When she opens the door, Quinn quickly hides a look of apprehension and tells her to hurry up.

Then they drive.

 

 

Quinn takes the wheel first and Rachel fidgets, wanting to talk and not wanting to bring up anything from last night directly.

“Let’s play a game,” she says.

“Rachel.”

“We have a lot of driving to do if you want to make it home today, Quinn.”

“Nice try, but I know what your version of a game looks like, Goldberg, and I’m not biting.”

Rachel slumps back in her seat, looking out the window. A sign for Area 51 flashes by.

“Why did you want to visit Area 51?” she asks, casting a quick look across the car. Quinn’s jaw sets, and her hands tighten around the wheel.

“No reason.” A pause. “It’s stupid.”

“Tell me.”

Quinn sighs and looks at Rachel sidelong, hoping she’ll change her mind. But Rachel tucks a leg up underneath her and leans a little over the console. “Come on, Quinn. Pretty sure we’ve shared almost everything there is with each other at this point.”

She realizes the double meaning of what she’s saying too late, and Quinn looks like she’s going to clam up again.

“My dad,” she says after a minute. “He was kind of a conspiracy theorist, especially after he hit his sixties. He always wanted to go to Area 51 but never made it, so… ugh. I don’t even know why I thought about it, it really is stupid.”

“It’s not,” Rachel says immediately, “We should go.”

 

 

They don’t get too close. The warning signs give them both a little pause, so they just stop the car and look through the fence from a safe distance.

“I should have come to your dad’s funeral,” Rachel says after a while.

Quinn shakes her head. “He was more of an alcoholic than a dad.”

Rachel looks down to where Quinn’s hand rests on the hood of the car. She knows she shouldn’t, but she covers Quinn’s fingers with her own.

Quinn doesn’t pull away.

 

 

They get back to the mansion just after dark, and Quinn sits in the passenger seat with the door open for a moment. The porch lights halo around her head and Rachel feels oddly breathtaken, as well as a little afraid.

“Rachel.”

Her voice is soft, and Rachel knows it can’t mean anything good.

“I think maybe we need to just…”

“Yeah.” Rachel says, cutting Quinn off before the pass. “Yeah, we should just forget about the past few days, too complicated, right.”

She’s falsely cheery, willing her eyes not to fill with tears - and Quinn knows it. But it’s enough to make her get out of the car, which is all Rachel wants right now.

Quinn turns and looks back down through the window at her. “See you Monday, Goldberg.”

 

 

Going home alone feels strange. Her car feels too big, the passenger side suddenly a gaping chasm that Quinn used to fill, and Rachel hates it. Everything feels unfinished and open-ended, and it's put her more on edge than every other day from this hell week put together.

She showers, brushes her teeth, gets into bed. Unfortunately nothing in the world would ever convince her to sleep. Or, almost nothing. She picks up her phone and her fingers itch above Quinn’s name. Rachel almost convinces herself out of pressing it before her thumb jerks down and she does it anyway.

Quinn picks up after three rings.

“Miss me?” she asks, because she knows Rachel wants to say yes.

When Rachel doesn’t answer her question, the line goes quiet on Quinn’s end until she sighs.

“What’s wrong?”

Rachel runs a hand through her hair and thinks about deflecting. Doesn't. “I want to ask you if I can come over – is that like, totally crazy? That I just really want to come over?”

“Rachel, it’s late.”

“I do miss you.”

 

 

The abundance of streetlights still feels odd after so many nights in the dark, and the house Quinn rents during shooting season is lit up like a Christmas tree.

The door is unlocked for her when she gets to it, and the deadbolt clicks satisfyingly as she thrusts it home on the other side.

Quinn is brushing her teeth when she gets upstairs, and simply gestures to the bed so Rachel shucks most of her clothes and hops in. Her whole body warms when Quinn slides in beside her, remembering the press of her hips and the depth of her mouth.

It’s then that she notices the t-shirt Quinn is wearing. Or more accurately, _her_ t-shirt Quinn is wearing.

“ _Don’t_ say a word,” she says when she sees Rachel staring. It’s an idle threat, but Rachel still keeps her mouth shut and just watches Quinn settle back against the pillows instead.

She’s still flexing her hand like it hurts, so Rachel gently takes it in her own and pulls it toward her. She lets her thumbs press into the soft parts of Quinn’s palm and feels the spasms up her fingers; watches Quinn’s eyes close in relief.

It’s rare to see Quinn like this, with so many of her walls down. Quinn is so used to protecting – the girls, herself, Rachel – that she knows the only time Quinn ever lets herself be protected is by the men she dates. Rachel wonders if that’s why she’s so certain things won’t work – or so certain that she should _believe_ things won’t work, between the two of them.

“I don’t need you to worry about me so much, you know,” she says, grazing her fingertips over Quinn’s knuckles.

“History says otherwise,” Quinn replies, her eyes still closed.

Rachel sighs. “I mean with us, Quinn. We just spent five days alone together and… came out the other side of it.” She laughs a little at the absurdity of that fact. “Who else could you do that with?”

For a moment she's completely still, but then Quinn sits up and leans over, kissing Rachel gently. It’s quiet but earnest, and Rachel takes Quinn’s face in her hands to hold her in place.

“Don’t test me about this, Rachel,” Quinn says, predicting what Rachel wants to ask her.

Rachel chooses to let it go, to let Quinn have this one. She finds herself being encouraged back onto the bed, Quinn’s hands roaming over her skin until Rachel is arching towards her touch.

However, when she reaches the band of Rachel’s underwear her hand stops.

“Is this okay?” Quinn asks, hovering over her. Her voice is low and her eyes are searching, and Rachel suddenly feels like every pocket inside her heart is brimming with something full and warm. No one’s ever really asked her that before. She’s used to enthusiasm being enough, used to her shirt coming off before she even really understands what’s happening. She’s not used to curious hands and a muted question that seeks her permission, and she knows there’s only one answer she can give.

She nods, and Quinn’s hand slides home.

 

 

On Monday morning Rachel wonders if she’s going to feel the sharp sting of reality, but when she walks into the control room and Quinn turns to look at her it’s with a soft, feline smile that makes Rachel’s stomach flip.

“Morning. Rachel. We’ve already had two bitch-matches while you were taking your sweet time to get to work – how about you go figure them out?”

Rachel smiles. “Sure thing, boss.”

She drops her bag on the desk in front of her, then walks over to bend down over the arm of Quinn’s chair. Grasping Quinn’s chin in one hand, Rachel pulls her face around so she can kiss her square on the mouth.

To her credit, Quinn kisses back instead of murdering her on the spot, but the look she gets as she pulls away clues Rachel in to the hell she’s going to get for her stunt later.

Somehow, she thinks she’s going to handle it just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> jsyk i'm not 100% on my timeline with this. it's roughly a couple of days from marin county > grand canyon with requisite stops but i didn't really bother checking the routes i used bc i'm a garbage baby who hates facts
> 
> as usual if a chat tickles ya fancy hit me up @hateful-witch on tumblr


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